We're back in Brooklyn today to meet
with the intensely creative musician and composer Ryan
Lott who writes and records under the name Son Lux.
He's made three solo albums, including "Lanterns" in 2013
and "We are Rising" in 2011, which
was made in response to a challenge from NPR
to make an entire album in 28 days.
Ryan is no stranger to collaboration.
In fact, it's at the core of just about everything he does.
He's work with Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti,
with Lorde, and with members of Punch Brothers,
and Arcade Fire.
He's performed at Carnegie Hall with the Young People's
Choir of New York, has composed for a number of dance
companies, and has arranged for a number of films
including "Looper" in 2012.
Ryan's work is densely layered, and he
has the remarkable ability to synthesize the talents
of a wide range of people.
He's working on a new album, and he's about to head out on tour.
But we've caught him at his home in Brooklyn
and he'd like to form a new collaboration-- with you.
Hi, I'm Ryan of Son Lux and this is your art assignment.
A lot of people refer to me as an electronic musician, which
is a little bit misleading because most of my music, most
of the materials in my music are actually acoustic,
and their origin is acoustic.
And I explore the sonic potential of acoustic sound
with digital signal processing.
Which sounds really fancy, but basically
just means that I just mess with sound with computers,
and the tools at my disposal that
are digital to find really interesting things that
may be hiding inside of acoustic sound.
I'm a pianist, and I sing, and I play some other instruments.
And I have a slew of friends who are
amazing at their respective instruments.
So I consider, as a composer, I consider all those things are
my tools, but ultimately I harness them all in some form
or fashion with a computer.
One thing that's special about music
is that it plays well with others.
It pairs really well with dance, it pairs really well
with visuals, it pairs really well with story.
And it both supports and is enhanced by other art forms.
I love the idea that a piece of music
can have a certain life inside of my mind, and in my studio,
and then as soon as it's out in the world
it takes on a whole different life, a new life.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to collaborate.
I'm going to write a piece of music
and then you're going to respond to it.
If you're also a musician maybe you could remix it,
maybe you could embellish it with your own arrangements,
add to it.
If you're a dancer, how about you make a dance.
If you are really good at Vine, how about
you make a series of Vine videos.
If you do stop motion claymation do something like that.
Anything.
Just respond to it.
This is a collaboration between you and me.
I'll bring myself to it, and I want
you to bring yourself to it.
So Sarah, as you know, I'm a huge fan of collaboration.
You and I collaborate on this project.
I collaborate with my brother a lot.
I once collaboratively wrote a novel
with my friend David Levithan.
Also, I'm a huge Son Lux fan, so this assignment
is perfect for me.
I am also a huge Son Lux fan.
But I'm curious, how would you characterize
your collaborations?
Well, I always imagine collaboration
as like two people in the same room all the time,
and there's a lot more independence
in my collaborations, a lot more space I guess I would say.
And I think that's what this assignment with Son Lux
brings up is that there's a way to collaborate
quite independently where you create
this great thing together, but it's
developed quite separately.
And it actually reminds me of the ongoing collaborations
between music and dance.
And especially the work of Merce Cunningham,
America's foremost modern dancer and choreographer,
and his partnership with John Cage.
Merce Cunningham joined forces with many artists
throughout his career.
But his most indelible collaboration
occurred with his life partner, famed experimental musician
John Cage.
They created many works together,
but one of the discoveries that guided them
was actually the separation of music and dance,
not allowing either art form to be subordinate to the other.
The work shared the same time and space,
but each element was created separately and brought together
at the moment of performance.
Artist Robert Rauschenberg was brought
into the mix for the work "Minutiae" from 1954.
For it, they used Cage's existing "Music for Piano 1-20"
and Rauschenberg created a freestanding environmental
object.
Merce and his company's dancers moved around the object,
through it, and under it, the choreography
determined by chance processes, and consisting
of small abrupt movements.
Scholar Roger Copeland suggested that Cunningham's way
of working can be understood as a part of the collage
aesthetic of modernism.
The disparate elements could co-exist
in a layered, open-ended composition.
Cunningham and Cage found a way of working together
that kept the integrity of each of their contributions.
And you have the same freedom to determine
the rules of your own collaboration with Ryan.
When you respond to another art form something
chemically happens differently in your brain
as it relates to your own creative process.
If you're creating something out of your own urges,
out of thin air, you're going to come up with something,
and I'm sure it'll be great.
But there's something else that happens, a different kind
of mental processing, different kind of creative process
when you create something in response to someone else's art.
And I think that's what makes this project unique, which is--
and a lot of the art assignments--
is that there's something to respond to.
And in this case, it's a piece of music
that I will create out of thin air.
My inspiration, of course, will be
that it will be part of a collaboration.
But what I create out of thin air
then your challenge, if you choose to accept it,
is to respond to it.
And chances are something will emerge that will surprise you.
And it'll help unlock something that is there, but just may
be needed a nudge.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SARAH URIST GREEN: And not that they're
divorced from each other.
Sorry.
He doesn't like the question.
Yeah.
He's like, always talking about this.
SARAH URIST GREEN: I know.
[LAUGHTER]